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Ryuji Sakamoto
Profile Ryuji Sakamoto is a student of Shujin Academy and knows about Ann Takamaki since middle school even though they are not too acquainted. Ryuji borrowed money from Ann in middle school so he could buy a stuffed dolphin for his mom from a school trip, but never paid her back, which Ann holds against him. He originally came from a household with an abusive father, who eventually abandoned him and his mother. Later on, Ryuji got a great opportunity for his future and to ease his mother's burden by becoming a star athlete on the school's track team. However, this earned disdain from the volleyball coach, Suguru Kamoshida, who then abused Ryuji and the entire track team. To put more salt in the wound, Kamoshida began telling everyone at Shujin about Ryuji's parents. This caused Ryuji to try and attack Kamoshida but in a manner of "self-defense" broke Ryuji's leg and caused the track team to disband. The protagonist first meets Ryuji after Kamoshida picks up Ann by car, and Ryuji, who is nearby, calls him "pervert" before greeting the protagonist who inquires about Kamoshida. Realizing the protagonist really knows nothing about Kamoshida, Ryuji quickly assumes he is a transfer student and the two get along. The two accidentally enter Kamoshida's Palace, the embodiment of Kamoshida's Shadow erected at where the school should be. Ryuji wants to help the students trapped in the palace, but fails. They are blocked by Kamoshida at the entrance when they try to escape and are nearly killed but was saved when the protagonist awakened his Persona ability. With the help of shape-shifting cat called Morgana, they manage to escape from the Palace. When the two confronts the real Kamoshida, however, the teacher has no idea what they are talking about. To make sure whether they were dreaming or not, Ryuji suggests they once again go to the Palace using the app installed in the protagonist's smartphone, at which they succeed. Meeting Shadow Kamoshida again, the Shadow reveals that he intentionally injured Ryuji's leg while acting as his advisor to ruin Ryuji's ability to participate in athletics again. His scheme is for the principal to invest in his volleyball team only and to gain admiration and submission from all the students of his school, but Ryuji was a great threat to him for drawing that attention. Kamoshida's true intention angers Ryuji deeply and Captain Kidd calls out Ryuji to awaken to his Persona ability for vengeance. Returning to the real world, Ryuji vows to expose Kamoshida's true self and becomes friends with the protagonist after both confide their backgrounds to each other. Together with the protagonist, they try to get information about Kamoshida from other students, but everyone is too afraid to talk. Morgana, in cat form, then approaches Ryuji and the protagonist, suggesting they steal the source of Kamoshida's corrupt heart to make him confess his own crimes. However, when Morgana mentions that Kamoshida will die if they by chance killed his Shadow, Ryuji and the protagonist ask for time to think. Not long afterward, Ann's friend, Shiho Suzui, attempts suicide and when Ryuji and the protagonist heard from Yuuki Mishima that Kamoshida called Shiho a day before, Ryuji and the protagonist realizes that Kamoshida has sexually assaulted her. Ryuji angrily confronts Kamoshida about this, resulting in Kamoshida's intending to expel him, the protagonist and Yuuki. Finally having enough with Kamoshida, Ryuji and the protagonist agrees with Morgana's suggestion to steal Kamoshida's treasure and make him confess his crimes. They later are joined by Ann who also wants to expose Kamoshida after hearing everything from Shiho. To agitate Shadow Kamoshida once they almost reach the treasure, Ryuji makes and attaches a calling card on the school board under the name "Phantom Thieves of Hearts" that is addressed to Kamoshida, stating he will confess his crime soon. After Kamoshida confesses his crime in front of the whole student body, Ryuji and the protagonist's expulsion is cancelled, much to their relief. With the case over, Ryuji and the others decides to celebrate at an expensive restaurant by using the money they got after selling Kamoshida's treasure. At the restaurant, Ryuji and the protagonist meet an arrogant man named Masayoshi Shido who quickly gets on Ryuji's nerves after rudely shoving them when they were waiting for the elevator. This encounter makes Ryuji decide to continue working as Phantom Thieves to cleanse the corruption from corrupt adults' hearts. The protagonist and Ann also agree with him, so they decide to continue being the Phantom Thieves. Personality Ryuji is known as a disruptive "problem student" at school whose bad behavior causes all sorts of trouble for the teachers. He is quite proud of his status as a self-proclaimed "troublemaker" and his rebellious, mischievous and disobedient nature are the perfect qualities to be a Phantom Thief. He is very vulgar and aggressive, using by far the most foul language of the group and often tearing into people with no concern for their feelings, as shown in his early interactions with Yusuke and Makoto. He is also rather short-tempered, easily taking offense from even the slightest of comments and can sometimes even resort to violence. He tends to be very blunt about his feelings without showing any hesitation, especially in regards to his hatred of selfish adults and authority figures who abuse their power. It gets to the point where simply listening to the protagonist's story of how he got arrested makes him extremely angry. Ryuji can be clumsy and overly energetic sometimes; he has a habit of yelling constantly, despite frequent warnings from Morgana to keep his voice down, which usually results in loud outbursts that often includes accidentally revealing himself and his friends as the Phantom Thieves. This consequently helped Makoto to identify him and the others when she was tailing them. This, combined with his frequent density, causes him to be viewed as an idiot by his peers, Morgana in particular. Ryuji also occasionally has a hard time accepting blame for things, though it's less he doesn't recognize when he's at fault so much as he hates being held solely responsible for an incident when he feels he isn't the only issue, or if it was simply beyond the group's control; when Yusuke scolds him for carelessly exposing them as the Phantom Thieves to Makoto, Ryuji points out that Ann got recorded as well, ignoring the fact that he was much louder than her and the one who implicated them by name-dropping the Phantom Thieves, while Ann was just responding to what he said. Then she apologizes, but he doesn't and changes the subject instead (though he does say "My bad" when Morgana brings it up again). He also never gives a real apology for repeatedly calling Morgana useless, which resulted in him briefly leaving the team; when he does apologize, it's rather half-hearted, and when Morgana returns, it's for his own reasons and for Haru. The two ultimately seem to consider themselves even, as Morgana had been insulting Ryuji from practically the moment they met. Beneath his seemingly delinquent-like behavior, Ryuji is actually a kind and altruistic person who is still trying to cope with his inability to continue becoming an athlete after the injury he suffered at Kamoshida's hand. He deeply cares for his mother and takes fervent effort as an athlete to relieve her worries; he reveals his father was an alcoholic who beat him and his mother and then left, so his mother is the only family he has. When he tells the group about the aftermath of his confrontation with Kamoshida, he sounds broken when he admits that, following a meeting with the school authorities, she apologized to him for being a single mother and not giving him a strong father-figure in life. He even calls himself a "bad son," due to him messing up his efforts to make things easier for his mother. Ryuji cares a great deal for the afflictions of others around him, such as when he attempts to help end the abuse of the volleyball team. He has a strong sense of right and wrong; when Morgana warns him and the protagonist that stealing Kamoshida's treasure may result in his death, Ryuji is shocked and reluctant to take that risk, believing that he and the protagonist going around secretly doing whatever they wanted would make them no different from Kamoshida. He changes his mind after Shiho Suzui's attempted suicide, but even after it's done, he wonders if it really was for the best. After a chance encounter with Shido, however, Ryuji comes up with the idea to continue as the Phantom Thieves, in order to get rid of adults who have gone unpunished for so long and give courage to all those who need it. Hobby-wise, apart from being on the track team, he also does muscle training. He can drink a 500mL bottle of carbonated water in one go which he did as training during his track and field club days. When he was active, he could also do 1000mL bottles. He is often impatient and has a habit of tapping the ground with his toes when he's bored, and prefers to get "straight to the point" during conversations. He claims he never reads, and his artbook profile claims he only reads manga. He also plays video games. He likes ramen especially, and is fussy about the flavor and texture of the noodles. Ryuji is also quite perverted, such as when he stares at Ann in the Mona car while the group were traveling through the desert in Futaba's Palace. When Ann confronts him about this later, he doesn't even try to deny it, saying that "it was a great view." Cameo Ryuji hardly appears in Persona 6, although if you try to travel to Shibuya and try to visit the Gate near Shujin Academy, you would Talk to a random PE teacher you find, there, he’ll talk about the High School Punk that was once here at school(resembling a bit of Ryuji) Trivia * his birthday was announced by a Birthday Tweet from the Persona Twitter Account * a lot of people tend to ship him with Ann Takamaki * Mako, Artist And Director of Persona 6 has drew Ryuji for his birthday at 2:00 PM (Japan Time) July 3, on Pixiv. Gallery File:Ryuji_and_ann_live_action_.jpeg|Ryuji and Ann in Live-Action 510895F2-ADED-428F-A6B7-765DE8321D85.png|Ryuji’s animated expression File:Phantom_Thieves.jpeg|Ryuji on the right File:Ryuji_fanart_mako_.png|Ryuji PNG fanart made by Mako. 00C11F95-F04A-4B6F-89E1-216E8585D06D.jpeg|Ryuji Featured in the Persona 5 Anime 36CA8A73-01CC-4CAD-B607-B5E11FFF7EE3.jpeg|Ryuji, in the Credits 96C14379-B433-4515-B930-2393766C0F2C.gif|Ryuji in the Persona 5 Anime, eating Ramen Noodles AEF438D2-14CE-42B5-86D6-6D16422D7C96.png|Ryuji‘s PS4 Theme 6B40CDEB-14B7-4FE8-93EC-0F25CC98329B.gif|Ryuji’s cutscene in the Persona 5 Anime File:Ren_and_Ryuji.png|Ryuji with Ren Amamiya File:Ryuji_last_opening.png|Ryuji in the last opening of Persona 5 The Animation File:Ren_and_Ryuji_being_idiots.png|Ren and Ryuji being idiots in the haunted house File:Ryuji_PQ2.png|Ryuji in Persona Q2 File:Skull_PQ2.png|Skull in PQ2 Category:Cameo Characters Category:Born in the 2000s Category:2005 Births